


Beloved Son (And Brother)

by pale_morning_sings_of_forgotten_things



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Because I'm certain that Sirius Black swears a lot, Brotherly Angst, Brothers, Canonical Character Death, House of Black, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Marauders, POV Sirius Black, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Regulus Black Deserves Better, Regulus Black Dies, Regulus Black Feels, Regulus is already dead, Sad Sirius Black, Sirius Black Deserves Better, Sirius Black Needs a Hug, Sirius blames himself :-(, Swearing, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Walburga Black's A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:15:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pale_morning_sings_of_forgotten_things/pseuds/pale_morning_sings_of_forgotten_things
Summary: Sirius Black visits Regulus Black's grave one early, foggy, miserable morning.He gets unexpected, and very much unwanted, company.
Relationships: Orion Black & Regulus Black & Sirius Black & Walburga Black, Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Regulus Black & Sirius Black & Walburga Black, Regulus Black & Walburga Black, Sirius Black & Walburga Black
Comments: 21
Kudos: 188





	Beloved Son (And Brother)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey again! I'm back and obviously still obsessed with Regulus and Sirius Black. 
> 
> Instead of writing on my already planned out fics, I've stayed up all night and written a one shot that I've decided to post immediately so I'm sorry about any grammatical errors. I have no beta and towards the end of it I felt like I'd forgotten how the English language works, but hey at least it's something. 
> 
> Hope you like it!
> 
> PSA: Angsssst, but that's just the usual.

“You’re an idiot, Reggie,” is the first thing Sirius Black says to his brother’s gravestone. Though, he does it with a strained voice fighting to be heard against the lump in his throat, and hot, searing tears in his eyes. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

He can’t quite understand it, still, even as he stares at Regulus’ engraved name as well as his date of birth — a day that had for long been one of the best days in Sirius’ life, even if he couldn’t remember it — and then, _horrifyingly_ , his date of death. A date Sirius has a nagging feeling that they had to guess, because no one knew for sure. 

No one seemed to know anything. 

Sirius’ brain tells him that _yes, Reggie is dead alright, bloody hell,_ but the part about him never coming home, of Sirius never seeing him again, of Sirius never getting the chance to make things up with him, that part he struggles to get into his thick skull. To fully grasp, wrap his head around. 

Maybe he never will. 

“Don’t you _dare_ speak such things about my son,” comes a voice suddenly from behind him and Sirius almost drops dead right there and then. 

He flinches by the first syllable — the war has made him constantly on edge, no one can blame him for that — but by the first couple of words, all of Sirius’ muscles instinctively tense, a shiver running down his back and his stomach twisting. 

He was supposed to be alone. No one was going to show up. It’s six in the morning, the day after the funeral — he obviously wasn’t invited — and he carefully chose this time to _not_ run into any family members.

But here his _so-called_ mother is, and of course it’s not _‘your brother’_ but _‘my son’_ because Walburga Black likes to make — everything about herself and Sirius is, of course, nothing more than dirt. An abomination, a child she no longer wants to be associated with. Or so she says, _has told him,_ multiple times. 

Sirius lets out a low, ragged breath, and tries to straighten up but his already aching muscles — strained yet tired — are making it hard. He hates the immediate reaction only the sheer sound of his mother’s voice still initiates in his body and mind. It alerts the fight-or-flight instincts in a heartbeat, which is very telling of how Sirius’ last time in 12 Grimmauld Place was. 

His eyes suddenly feel too dry and his heart no longer feels like it might stop, but have doubled its speed by now.

He tries to remind himself that she doesn’t have that much power over him anymore; he isn’t her son, she isn’t his mother and on top of that he’s grown up to be a very skilled wizard as he’s been told by the _most skilled_ wizard himself, Albus Dumbledore. So he plasters on a cold mask that he’s regrettably given _Regulus_ one too many times and turns around.

“Mother,” he gets out, although it sounds unnatural and strained and not nearly as cool and casual as he had intended it to be. 

“What are you doing here, you _filth,”_ she spits furiously, and _oh_ to be called _filth_ ; he thought that was strictly reserved to muggleborns and muggles up until now.

But maybe he’s just as bad, or worse, in her eyes now. And that — despite years of James telling him that his family ain’t shit, of Remus reassuring him that what they’re saying isn’t true — still stings a little, deep down in his chest. Not that he expected anything less from her, but he’s clearly not accepted his childhood and moved on from the fact that _mothers are supposed to love their children, to wish them well_ when his mother never did. 

But he probably never will be over it. 

Walburga looks, frankly, _terrible_. She’s seemingly aged ten years, at least, in less than half of that. Sirius would’ve probably found joy in this, if he didn’t feel the same way. It’s stressful times, just war and pain and fear and _death_. And now _death_ is a little bit too close — meaning very much too close, overstepped by far — to home. 

She’s pale, paler than usual. This means a skin colour close to _actual corpses_ considering how pale Blacks typically are to begin with. Her complexion appears almost grey in contrast to the deep blackness of her long-sleeve, high-neck dress. Her new wrinkles look more like profound creases on her forehead and her eyes are hard, bright with hatred and disgust. Her black mane is turning grey, something Sirius thought he’d never get to see. 

She looks much more like a grieving, hysterical and broken mother than Sirius could’ve ever imagined her to. She looks far more emotional than the non-feeling creature he’s always perceived her to be. 

“He is my brother. Was my brother,” Sirius replies as an explanation to his presence, because that is _enough_ , and ignores the sudden, squeezing pain in his chest as he does so. 

He still pathetically struggles to speak of Regulus in past tense. 

“He was nothing to you,” Walburga ruthlessly counters and Sirius concentrates very hard to not take a step back, to recoil, at that. 

He shakes his head fiercely. That isn’t true. 

“He was nothing to you, after you left him,” Walburga goes on, words heated and a little mad, unhinged. “You’ve never cared about family, Sirius.”

He shakes his head more energetically, but can’t find his tongue, his voice. _It isn’t true._ He definitely cares about family, but he doesn’t care about them for the sake of them being family. Blood relation isn’t enough, not when you’re a product of some of the darkest wizards in the history of magic and you don’t agree with them. But he _definitely_ cared about people that are family. Andromeda, his favourite cousin, for example. Alphard, who had been a kind, open-minded presence yet fierce enough to put up a fight against Walburga and Cygnus.

And Regulus. His little brother. His first friend, and best friend for long. His mirror, the little boy he swore to protect and who protected him back, in a way Sirius failed to see as actual protection until much later. Who healed his wounds and tried to keep Walburga off Sirius’ back and who let Sirius hug him as he cried. Who hadn’t stopped him, when he was about to leave, for good. 

Regulus wanted him to go, in fear of Walburga and Orion would do to him if he stayed. Sirius is sure of it. What he realised later, when it was much too late, was that maybe Regulus wanted Sirius to ask him to come with. Sirius just never thought Regulus wanted to leave, not when he still had that blind faith in their family, naive as he was. A _romantic_ , as he was. 

The cold Regulus — _Regulus 2.0_ as Sirius referred to him as because the moniker stuck, even though he disliked it because it implied that 2.0 was better than 1.0 which wasn’t true — came later. The narrative that Sirius abandoned Regulus was clearly his mother’s and Sirius hated her even more then, even though he had thought that to be impossible. 

Although, he has to admit that he was and had been distant for a long time; caught up with his friends and high on life. They had since long been different and Regulus choosing to go into Slytherin — he could’ve been a Ravenclaw, Sirius is sure of that too — put a strain on their relationship as well as a damper on Sirius’ desire to hang out with Regulus. Regulus turned to his Slytherin friends, who Sirius hated, instead. They weren’t on the best of terms, but good enough for Regulus to quietly heal Sirius injuries the night he ran away and for him to agree when Sirius told him that he needed to run.

Sirius is sure Regulus saved his life, in a way, as he’d thought about running away many times before but wasn’t able to go through with it until the one time he had Regulus’ support. It just fucking sucks that he didn’t repay it, and left Regulus to his own demise.

“He was a _good_ boy,” Walburga speaks up, breaking his thoughts, and _that_ , that hurts. “Too soft. But good.”

Sirius almost doubles over. He tries to keep his face as straight as possible but he’s sure that there was at least some sort of a twitch. Most of the things his mother says cause little to no pain; she can’t manipulate him the way she used to. But that, that hurts like hell because it’s true.

Regulus was a gentle wizard. A kind boy. Quiet and composed but in no way not equipped to handle Sirius’ teasing with sarcastic remarks, disarming enough to even make Sirius laugh. He was bright and quick-thinking and witty and caring and still he became a Death Eater, despite Sirius yelling at him that would kill him. And so it did. Sirius has spent a long time trying to figure out how such an intelligent person could make all the wrong choices. How he could sign over his life, his own will, his autonomy, to a man that was clearly getting more and more unhinged, the power getting to his head. Surely Regulus saw that too.

But the answer had been clear all along, Sirius just refused to see it before. 

Family. Regulus had always believed in family, to the point of being naive. He always had hope that Walburga and Sirius would get along and solve their problems, that Orion would start caring, that Sirius would come home. And he had seen what happened when you rebelled, so he quietly went along instead, hoping to work within the system that is the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black instead. 

And Sirius left him. Of course Regulus would stay with them, fall deeper into their grip, into their fanatic ideology. A Black heir was promised to the Dark Lord, as he later found out, and by leaving Sirius locked Regulus’ fate in.

He wonders how much Regulus believed of it all. He seemed to be firmly on their side, at least outwards, but then he’d do things that made Sirius’ opinion on the matter waver. He wouldn’t make muggleborns’ lives hard on his own, never called them mudblood unless he was with his Slytherin friends. Now this could’ve been out of cowardice, which Sirius might’ve believed if he hadn’t caught Regulus having civilised conversations with known muggleborns in his year; not often, but a few times. He’d never been close enough to hear — if he had been, Regulus probably would’ve seen him and stormed off as a result — but the conversations always seemed calm, with no indication that one disrespected the other. 

Sirius doesn’t know what’s worse; that possibility that Regulus was entirely on Voldemort’s side and a pureblood fanatic, or the chance that he was trapped in a lie he’d been living to survive, that in the end just killed him instead. 

He knows that it hurts though. It’s painful knowing that he’s gone. That he died so young. If Sirius had known that Regulus’ time in life was going to be so short, he would’ve never let him go. His mother seems to think so too, by the way her tone wavers. 

He doesn’t like seeing her like this. He had thought that he would feel satisfaction in seeing her in shatters, but it’s just scary. It makes Regulus’ passing feel much more real. Real and so bad it made even Walburga Black cave.

“We don’t know where his body is. We don’t know what happened to him,” Walburga continues when Sirius says nothing, her voice filled with grief disguised as anger. She steps forward to stand next to her son, and Sirius both watches her and listens tensely. He’s quite a bit taller now but her imposing statue still makes him feel small and he hates it. “For our reputation we will let the outside world believe that he died while bravely carrying out his master’s, the Dark Lord’s, wishes, but in truth the Death Eaters don’t know what happened to him either. Bellatrix has been looking, but without success. All we know is that he’s dead.”

Sirius almost asks how they can know that he’s gone, but then he remembers the tapestry. It’s magical and probably put a death date next to Regulus’ birth date by itself.

A shiver runs through his body. He feels cold, ice pooling in his stomach. He gets the urge to scream suddenly, but he’s been screaming so much the days since he found out that his little brother is dead that his throat hurts. 

“It wasn’t the Order either,” Sirius replies quietly, daring to take his eyes away from the gravestone and glance at his mother. “They would’ve told me. And I asked.”

A low sound escaped Walburga’s throat but she made no more effort to give an answer than that.

“Why are you telling me this?” Sirius asks then, focusing on the confusion surrounding his mother’s current behaviour, rather than the thought that his brother’s corpse is out there somewhere, lost and alone and decaying. 

“Because I want you to know,” Walburga says and for a moment Sirius’ eyebrows travel up his forehead before she continues, “I want you to know that this is your fault. Without you, Regulus would’ve followed the Dark Lord. Without you, Regulus would’ve been loyal, not corrupted and confused and now dead. He would’ve been alive.”

Her voice turns more and more toxic and her black eyes are wide and dangerous as they stare into Sirius' soul. She inches closer and closer as she spits the words at him, fully believing it, and he stares at her, taking a step back as he can’t get a breath in.

His eyes begin burning again and he blinks, mouth open while she trembles as if she’s about to explode. 

“He was too soft, and I couldn’t get _you_ completely out of his head,” she goes on and pronounces the word _you_ with so much disgust that Sirius cringes. 

Sirius opens and closes his mouth several times over as his mother waits, growing angrier and angrier. His body seems to tensely wait for her to start using unforgivable curses on him, just like she used to when being this angry. Or far less angry, because Sirius has never seen her _this_ angry. Her lips are pale and it looks like her eyes are about to bulge out of her head. Her face that might’ve been quite beautiful is contorted into such a haunting expression that it could’ve made a grown man cry. 

Sirius tries very hard to not be that man. 

“You are every bit just as pathetic as you used to be,” Walburga spits. “Regulus may have been too soft, but he was a far better son than you. He was a _good boy.”_

And now it looks like she’s about to cry too, her dark, angry eyes turning glossy. Sirius is unsure if he’s ever seen her cry. Her hands are shaking, balled up into fists by her sides and right before the tears spill over, she turns to the side, so that Sirius is left to stare at her side profile. 

“If I ever see you here again, I’ll kill you,” she finishes.

She brings out her wand and Sirius begins to think that she’s already changed her mind and will kill him right here and now, despite the fact that they’re in public. It’s six in the morning after all, and it’d be easy to bury him then, when he’s already here. Just dig up the spot next to Regulus’ and it's done; neat and all. 

But she turns to the grave and conjures deep red roses, beautiful in a dramatic way, underneath Regulus’ name. Then she seems to wipe a tear before she promptly whirls around and walks away with long, powerful strides; her tall, dark silhouette disappearing into the lingering fog. It’s such a dramatic sight that Sirius for a moment thinks that maybe he’s imagining all of this after all. 

He watches the cemetery, the darkness, the fog where she disappeared for a long while, until he finally turns his head back towards the gravestone; his neck stiff and his mouth dry. _Reggie’s gravestone._

It’s utterly terrifying that a fully alive, breathing, thinking, feeling person can be reduced to a name on a smooth piece of stone. A person, who’s arms Sirius still remembers the feeling of, the sensation of them as they rested around his neck and shoulders when he gave him a piggy-back ride, as he sometimes used to do, when they were kids. A person, who he once screamed at in the middle of a Hogwarts corridor, in front of what felt like a hundred pairs of nervous, scared or perhaps even intrigued eyes.

_He disappeared,_ Sirius thinks and envisions Regulus looking at him for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face, before turning around and disappearing into the thick fog too. No one knows where he is, and that is terrifying too; the concept that someone can just step outside a door or turn around a corner to never be seen again. Only _Regulus_ knows his location and that secret he seems to have taken with him into his grave, wherever that is. 

Sirius sinks down on shaking legs, his knees hitting the wet grass. He reaches out a trembling hand, placing his palm flat against the cold stone, and that’s what makes the stinging tears in his eyes spill over, rolling heavily down his cheeks. _It’s Regulus’ gravestone._ His _little brother’s_ gravestone.

Painful sobs shake his body, his shoulders trembling and his stomach twisting painfully and his heart clenches and his chest constricts and his throat burns and his legs are weak. His body, his core, _his soul perhaps,_ feels like a bottomless pit. Like a black hole, even. He no longer associates himself with anything star-related but a _black hole._

Maybe Regulus is a black hole now too. A star, a supernova and then a black hole. 

Sirius feels like a part of himself has died too. There’s a lot of factors contributing to that; his mother’s hate, his father’s disapproval, the abuse, the war, his own guilt for his past mistakes, but he’s sure that it was the news of Regulus’ death that was the final straw. Yes, something definitely snapped in him after receiving that letter, he screamed and screamed and screamed, and he also turned violent. 

Something’s broken. 

He almost removes his hand from the gravestone to wrap his arms around himself, but decides against it, and moves closer to the stone and hangs both of his arms over it, placing his forehead against the hard surface that makes up the top of it. As if practically hugging Regulus’ gravestone, under which his brother _wasn’t_ buried, is the closest thing he’ll get to the real thing now. 

“Fuck, Reggie,” he sobs, teardrops hitting the grey stone now instead, creating momentary dark stains. 

He forces himself to sit back a little, feeling ridiculous, but still leaning heavily on the stone that’s probably not meant to be leaned against this way. His eyes get stuck on the name.

_Regulus Arcturus Black._

Once, Regulus had admitted that he liked Sirius’ name better. Sirius told him that _Regulus_ makes for lovely nicknames such as _Reggie_ and _Arcturus_ is significantly cooler than _Orion_. He remembers, with a fondness, how much a five-year-old Regulus struggled to pronounce his middle name, though. At the time he found it funny, especially with how frustrated Regulus got, now he thinks of it as endearing. 

_1961–1979._

Now those years are far too close to each other. 

_Beloved son._

Sirius almost adds _‘and brother’_ but he doesn’t dare to. Not because of fear of his parents or the rest of the family, but because of what Regulus would’ve thought of that. He isn’t sure. 

He drags in a ragged breath and runs his fingers over the name, that’s just as pretentious as his own. It has brought him so much anger, the last few years. Until just a few days ago, when grief and guilt finally overpowered the feelings of betrayal and disappointment and _anger_. Worry has always been in the picture as well, up until Sirius received the letter. It was always complicated. It still is complicated, what he feels. But right now, in this moment, all he feels is devastating heartbreak and regret. He can’t even bring himself to feel particularly angry at or insulted by his mother’s words. 

“She was right, you know,” he says to the stone in an unsteady voice, because he’s a maniac, but also, he can’t talk to his brother anymore, “this _is_ my fault. Her and father’s mostly, I’m not so dazed that I’ll let them make me believe anything else than the fact that it was them who ruined your life, ultimately, but it’s my fault too, all of this. A family effort, one could say.”

It might have been his parents pushing Regulus into the life that caused his death, but _he_ also left him to his fate. _Sirius_ did nothing to stop it, _he_ pushed him away. He chose James and Remus and Peter over Regulus. Regulus, who had been Sirius’ first best friend. Probably would’ve been still if Walburga and Orion hadn’t ruined that by pitting them against each other and traumatising them in different ways. Sirius was angry for a long time that Regulus had been too scared to try to protect Sirius from their mother’s wrath as Sirius protected him — which he firmly believes isn’t an unwarranted feeling — but if Walburga hadn’t abused Sirius, that wouldn’t have been a problem. If Walburga and Orion hadn’t put pressure on Regulus to be the perfect son, reminding him that he needs to make up for all of the chaos Sirius left behind, then Sirius doesn’t think Regulus would’ve made the choices he did. Assuming that taking the dark mark was a choice.

Unless Regulus’ persona changed entirely over the years. Sirius couldn't be sure, not when he actively and passionately tried to acknowledge Regulus’ presence as little as possible. Regulus, of course, returned the favour. He regrets that now. More than anything he’s ever done, and Sirius has made a lot of mistakes. Probably will make many more as well, but he doubts that nothing will be as bad as this.

“I wish I had known, Reggie, that you wouldn’t be here anymore, so soon. That I would have to live without you, so early or at all, that I would be a brother to no one. I would’ve held onto you tighter, I would’ve kept you close. And for that I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that I didn’t reach out and judged you so easily. That I got a new family and never tried to include you. You were the only thing I cared about in that godforsaken house-” he pauses, gasping for breath. He feels like he’s been having problems breathing always these last few days “-I wish I wouldn’t have let you go. And I’m sorry that it took you dying for me to say that out loud. _I’m_ an idiot too.”

Once the words have poured out of him, he hand drops to the ground, feeling exhausted. There’s a spot of freshly moved dirt in front of the gravestone. He wonders what they buried, as he assumes that they never found his wand either. He wonders what _he_ would’ve buried if he got to choose. A few of Regulus’ favourite books maybe. Regulus used to like to draw, did he keep up that hobby? In that case, maybe a drawing? His favourite robes? He doesn’t know. The truth is that he didn’t know his brother as well as he wishes he would’ve and he doesn’t know how to go about these sorts of things. He’s never lost a brother before, and he’s never lost _anyone_ in this way previously. 

“I wish I knew where you are, Reg, because then I would come and get you,” he says and wipes his face haphazardly with his palms, snivelling. 

The thought of finding Regulus’ corpse is sickening — _What state would it be in? Who or what killed him? Where is it?_ — but he thinks Regulus never being found and brought to rest seems worse. 

“You were the one that was supposed to live… I always thought it was me that would die first.” He shakes his head to himself, more tears spilling from his eyes in place of the ones he just wiped away. He makes no move to do the same to these new ones so they just collect at and cling to his jaw. “You were good at surviving in that fucking horror house, _so_ much better than me, but I guess no one survives Orion and Walburga Black.”

He sits in silence for a handful of heartbeats — the only sound is the low rustling of the leaves of the trees surrounding the cemetery — before he remembers something. Grabbing his leather jacket, he reaches inside it, picking something out of his inner pocket. 

It’s a photo of them. Taken by Andromeda, and picturing Sirius and Regulus at ages 15 and 13. Sirius has a tight arm hooked around Regulus’ narrow shoulders and they’re both laughing, which is a rare sight, at least in photos since most are taken by his parents, with their parents or in close proximity to their parents. It seems like an entire lifetime ago. 

_(They’ll never laugh together again.)_

It’s a copy of the real one because he is never, ever, going to leave the sole picture he has of them. He brought it with him when he ran away and kept it through all of these years. Sometimes it was almost forgotten, and other times always kept close to his heart. He should probably charm it to make it more durable, because he doesn’t want it to become thin and faded and worn. It’s the only thing he has, except for the memories and his striking resemblance to his brother that he suspects is always going to make him uncomfortable from now on, every time he looks in the mirror. 

The copy of it, in his hand right now, he places in front of the gravestone, leaning it against it beside his mother’s roses. He considers using his infamous sticking charm on it — which would annoy the living shit out of his mother as a bonus, forever reminding her of what they ruined — but he is unsure if Regulus would’ve wanted that, with how Sirius treated him. He is unsure, over all, what his brother thought of him when he died. 

“I am so sorry, Regulus,” he says again with his still-thick voice because he feels that he can never say that enough times. “I hope you know how much I loved you, but I doubt that you did. A-And that’s my fault.”

Then he stands up, tears still running down his face. The corners of his eyes are burning red by now from the constant flow of salty tears, but that particular pain is small in comparison to the rest of it.

He places his fingertips on the cool stone once more. He knows he can’t come here again and every time he removes his hands from the gravestone there’s a sinking realisation that it was the last time he ever touched it, a realisation he can’t live with so he touches it again.

“You _were_ good, Reggie. Not only in the way she means though, and I believe nothing else,” he says to the gravestone that will never answer him and the statement is not even wishful thinking, because he sincerely believes that deep down. “And if you weren’t, in the end, you’re just going to have to deal with me thinking something else. But I’m entirely sure that you at least were good, once, and I choose to believe that you kept on being good, at least deep down. You were never evil or cruel. You were good.”

He sighs. He doesn’t know what more to say. There’s so much to express, to get out, but he doesn’t know how to word it and it doesn’t really matter, because Regulus is still dead. 

He should go. He knows he can’t stay and he should just do it now, rip it off like one of those muggle bandaids. His feet feel heavy as iron, _lead_. But somehow, they begin moving. 

His fingers linger on the gravestone for as long as possible before his feet take him too far away. It hurts, a bone-deep ache. But Regulus is dead, and his bones aren’t here. 

Once this bloody war is over and Sirius can move a little bit more freely — not under the constant threat of being killed for just going outside his wards, that is — he’s going to look for Regulus and find him. Do what no one else has been able to, or tried very hard to do. Maybe he didn’t do enough while Regulus was still alive, but if there’s anything Sirius can do now to make it a little better, he will. 

Bring him to rest. He would say _home_ but the Black family is not home and this, more than anything, is proof of that. It never was, not to Sirius — as he’s known for a long time — and not to Andromeda, and he has a strong feeling that it never was to Regulus either.

He’s just sad — _heartbroken_ — that he, Sirius, didn’t try to become _home_ instead. 

There’s nothing he can do about that now though. So in the end, he just walks away from Regulus’ _‘grave’,_ becoming the second — or perhaps third — Black to disappear into the thick fog that never seems to go away. 

**Author's Note:**

> The more tears the better.


End file.
